


We Follow Darkness Like A Dream

by small_town_girl



Series: RTIS Program 'Verse [2]
Category: Glee
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Slavery, Angst, Family, M/M, Star-crossed
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-06
Updated: 2011-12-06
Packaged: 2017-10-27 00:29:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,205
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/289574
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/small_town_girl/pseuds/small_town_girl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Written for the Fic I Didn't Write Game on the Puckurt LJ Comm.<br/>'Verse: Open</p><p>Summary:<br/>In a society where parents can sell their delinquent kids into a slave system instead of paying for them to be rehabilitated in jail, Kurt finds himself drawn to his neighbour's new slave-boy, a boy only known as Puck.</p>
            </blockquote>





	We Follow Darkness Like A Dream

It was a law made during a time when the government decided something had to be done about the growing number of crime being committed by youths and the financial strain it took to house them in a juvenile facility and rehabilitate them. There would no longer be a jail sentence for anyone under the age of twenty-one if found guilty of a crime. Their parents could either decide to pay to have their child put through a rehabilitation program, with the price depending on the severity of the crime, or they could sell their child to the Rehabilitation Through Indentured Servitude program, otherwise known as RTIS with the children being known simply as The Guilty. The child would be assigned to a home for a length of time to be determined by a judge and the head male of that family would pay the RTIS program a fee every month that the child worked for them. The system was so successful that the government was looking at implementing one for the repeat offenders among the adult population.

That was how Noah ’Puck’ Puckerman found himself being shoved into the backseat of an army green jeep and driven to the nearest RTIS facility to await his placement assignment. His mother could have tried to work out an affordable payment plan to have him rehabilitated, the program was actually very willing to be fair about prices and payments, but she’d decided he wasn’t worth it, that he couldn’t be rehabilitated, and she’d sold him. All because he got caught stealing a toy from a too-expensive store because he wanted to ensure his little sister got one present for her eighth birthday next week.

All his belongings were taken away, taken by a random guard for processing and Puck knew he’d be lucky to see any of it again. The Guilty weren’t allowed many possessions other than the three grey uniforms that told the world they were part of the RTIS program. If the family they were assigned to decided to afford them additional comforts, such as music or television privileges, that was the family’s right. All the family was required to provide The Guilty was a place to sleep, three meals a day, and access to wash their uniforms.

He was taken to what the guards called the Branding Area, a room where he was strip-searched and left feeling degraded before the logo of the RTIS program was tattooed on his skin, on both palms of his hands. He would have to earn the right to have those tattoos removed.

It took a week for him to get a placement, ten minutes to say goodbye to any friends he’d made, then herded out to where an identical army green jeep was waiting to drive him to his assignment home.

“Don’t speak unless you’re spoken to,” William Schuester, his caseworker, told him as they pulled up in front of the house. “Don’t argue about any order you’re given, don’t give the family any excuse to call with a problem.”

“Yes Sir,” Puck nodded. He caught sight of the neighbouring family in their yard, parents ushering their two teens boys into the house as they noticed the jeep in the next driveway. It was no secret that an army green jeep signalled the presence of the RTIS program and those jeeps tended to be given a wide berth by most people.

He had two years to work off before he’d earn the right to remove his branded tattoo and be free to start his life over. If he was lucky and really impressed the father of his assigned home, he could get his sentence reduced by six month but that happening was rare. If he did anything to upset the family, his sentence would be prolonged for an amount of time determined by the judge, the same judge who’d been unsympathetic to his story. When Schuester left, he’d truly be on his own.

 

*****

Kurt Hummel let his father pull him through the front door while listening to his brother Finn protesting at getting the same treatment from their mother. He was positive Finn hadn’t seen the jeep, or if he had he hadn’t made the connection. Finn was only a few months younger than him but most days it seemed like his brother was still a child instead of a teenager that would soon be an adult. Kurt knew what that jeep being in their neighbour’s driveway meant and, as surprised as he was that the Harris family would hire someone from the RTIS program, he was also fascinated. He’d never seen one of The Guilty before but he’d heard horror stories from kids at school whose families had hired someone from the program. He couldn’t imagine what The Guilty were forced through and, though it was an uncommon thought among the population of his country, he felt sorry for them.

“Why can’t we stay outside?” Finn whispered to him as they sat on the couch in the living room. “I wanted to play basketball.”

“Paranoid parents,” Kurt whispered back, eyeing their parents talking softly by the big bay window. Every now and then one of them would glance outside, as if waiting for something, then look away.

He knew their parents were being cautious, maybe overly so, out of fear that the RTIS program had assigned a teenage murderer to their neighbour’s house. It wasn’t an issue that was ever openly discussed in their house but Kurt knew how everyone felt. His dad was pro-program but only for those repeat offenders who had no interest in being rehabilitated. His mom thought a parent selling their child was barbaric and the parent should be the one on trial. Finn didn’t fully understand the program but he’d move closer to their parents or Kurt if they saw one of The Guilty, as if he was afraid someone would snatch him away from his family.

Kurt wasn’t sure how he felt. The idea of having someone his age living and working in his house was weird; knowing that the person had committed some sort of crime, maybe one as serious as stealing or even murder was terrifying. Families weren’t forced to hire from the RTIS program but a lot did to feel better about themselves. Some sincerely wanted to help the teenagers but with the monthly bill to the program being listed under approved charities, a lot took on someone from the program for the tax break. He wasn’t sure if he could get used to ordering a kid around, making them do his cooking, laundry, shopping.

“Why?”

“The Harris’ got a kid from the program,” he explained. He watched as their parents suddenly and quickly walked out the front door. He was at the window a second later with Finn following right behind him, faces pressed up against the glass to see what was going to happen. “I wonder what he did. I don’t think Mr Harris would let someone violent into his house, not with the baby.”

He felt Finn press closer to him. Finn was in no danger of being sold to the RTIS program, even if his brother somehow found himself in enough trouble their parents would never sell either of them, but just the idea always made Finn uncomfortable. Kurt let Finn get as close as he needed to calm himself while he watched their parents talk with Mr Harris and another man, The Guilty boy’s caseworker, he assumed.

The boy stood beside his caseworker. He looked a little older than Kurt, maybe by a year or two, and had his dark hair cut into a Mohawk. The boy nervously kept shifting his weight from foot to foot as the adults spoke and Kurt wondered if he could hear them. They weren’t involving him in the conversation but it was clearly about him. His dad was nodding his head then shaking hands with Mr Harris and the caseworker. Whatever they’d discussed, Kurt knew their parents were deciding not to protest the boy’s assignment. Their neighbourhood would have its first member of The Guilty.

As their parents walked back to their house, Finn hurried back to his place on the couch. Kurt stayed by the window and watched the caseworker unload a small duffel bag from the jeep and set it at the boy’s feet. All the boy’s belongings fit in that one bag. That bag wouldn’t even fit Kurt’s sock collection.

“Kurt, come away from the window,” he heard his dad say. He could hear the unsaid ‘it’s not polite to stare’ in his voice.

Kurt took one last look out the window and, to his surprise, the boy was staring straight at him. Even with the distance between them, Kurt could see the haunted look in the boy’s eyes, a look that said the boy was scared, hurt, and lost. The boy broke their gaze as he followed Mr Harris into his new home and Kurt turned to join Finn on the couch. For the rest of the night, Kurt couldn’t get those eyes out of his head.

 

*****

Kurt took a long shower the next morning, as his parents were at work and Finn never woke before noon on the weekends. He stood in his closet, trying to decide on which outfit to wear when he heard laughter coming from outside, filtering into his room through his open window. It sounded like Finn, but Finn should be dead to the world in his bed just like every other Saturday morning, not laughing outside in the backyard.

He peeked outside and spotted Finn sitting on the ground by the fence that separated their yard from the Harris’, and if it wasn’t for his second story bedroom, Kurt would have thought Finn was happily talking to himself. That would have been less surprising than seeing Finn holding a conversation with their neighbour’s new slave and laughing as if they’d been friends for years. It was Finn, who became so clingy at the sight of The Guilty that he once left bruises on their mom’s arm; Finn, who’d woken up screaming from a nightmare for two weeks straight after his best friend Sam had been sold into the program. Finn was the last person Kurt would expect to be enjoying a conversation with one of The Guilty.

But he couldn’t deny that it was really nice to see Finn laughing and smiling again. His brother didn’t have many friends and finding out from Jacob, the school’s gossip columnist, that Sam had been caught stealing money from the pizza place where he worked and was taken into the RTIS program had shaken him. Sam hadn’t been the first in their school to be sold by their parents, but he was the first that either Kurt or Finn knew well. Freshman year a girl, Santana Lopez, had been sold after being found guilty of assaulting a fellow student and had disappeared from the town. Sam had also disappeared from Lima but Kurt had heard a rumour that he’d been assigned to work at a boarding school in another town.

The protective part of him wanted to walk straight outside and drag Finn back into the house. He didn’t think the slave was dangerous; his dad wouldn’t have approved of Puck, as he’d overheard his father call him, being assigned to the Harris family if he’d done something violent. What he worried about was Finn getting attached and Puck doing something to get assigned to a new home. He was sure his brother couldn’t handle going through that again.

But Finn wouldn’t listen to him even if he did go out there, and all they were doing was talking while Puck painted the Harris’ side of the fence. And now Kurt would be able to pump Finn for information about Puck later.

He spotted Mr Harris watching Finn and Puck from his back porch, nodding his head at Finn’s enthusiastic greeting. Good. At least Puck wasn’t going to get into trouble for talking, well mostly listening, to Finn. From what he knew of Mr Harris, the man was fair and wouldn’t punish Puck for indulging Finn’s need to talk. The RTIS Program did their best to place The Guilty in good homes but everyone knew it didn’t necessarily work out that way.

He went back to his closet to pick out an outfit. If he didn’t get dressed soon his entire routine would be thrown off and he hated when that happened. He’d make breakfast, closer to a brunch by now, then call Finn in to eat.

“Finn,” he called out the door once he’d finished making French Toast for Finn and a fruit bowl for himself. “Time for lunch.”

“Coming,” Finn yelled. A few moments later he came running through the backdoor, almost colliding with Kurt.

“Careful,” Kurt said. He was used to Finn charging into a room, sometimes tripping over a chair or his own feet when he tried to stop. “So you’ve met Puck then?” he asked as he placed a stack of French Toast in front of his brother.

“Yeah,” Finn nodded before shoving a mouthful of breakfast into his mouth. “He likes football.”

Sports. If there was anything that could get Finn to trust a person, it was their like of sports, especially football.

“What are you doing up so early?” Kurt knew how to get information from Finn. It was best to ask simple questions at first so as not to give away his true intentions. If Finn figured out what he wanted, his brother would still tell him, but he’d be relentless in wanting to know why Kurt needed the information.

“Couldn’t sleep,” Finn shrugged. “No, no nightmares,” he added before Kurt could ask. “It was just really hot last night and I kept waking up so when I heard Mom get up, I got up too.”

“It was hot,” Kurt had taken his comforter off his bed before he crawled in last night so he wouldn’t wake up drenched in sweat. “How long were you talking to Puck?”

“Maybe an hour,” Finn replied, attacking a second piece of toast. “I was outside when he came out to paint the fence and I thought it would be rude to run inside just because he came out. And he’s actually a really cool guy.”

“Oh?”

Finn nodded eagerly and filled Kurt in on everything he knew about Puck. It wasn’t much, and most of it wasn’t the kind of information Kurt was looking for but he drank up every word. His next step would have to be to talk to Puck himself.

 

*****

Kurt never expected that his life would be affected by one of The Guilty being assigned next door but he found himself pulled toward the window every time he knew Puck was outside. He still hadn’t spoken a word to the slave, unlike Finn who was fast becoming friends with Puck. Luckily Mr Harris was more amused than annoyed and it never affected Puck’s work. They were to the point where Puck would play basketball or toss a football with Finn during the off-hour Mr Harris allowed him each day.

He continued to learn more about Puck through Finn. He still didn’t know what Puck had done to have been sold into the program, The Guilty were expressly forbidden from telling anyone of their crime, so if Kurt wanted to know, he’d have to find out from Mr Harris or his parents. The male head of the family was the only person with permission to tell others about the crime committed by The Guilty assigned to their home, and even then it was only to alleviate fear from neighbours.

It had been two weeks since Puck had arrived at the Harris’ and every day he was outside working on the backyard. It was summer and Mr Harris had allowed Puck to forgo the usual slave uniform for a white tank top so Puck was getting a nice tan. Kurt wasn’t sure of the details of how The Guilty kept up their education during the school year but the program did have a way.

“Finn, can you get that?” he yelled when there was a knock on the door. He was busy doing laundry while Finn was resting on the couch, recovering from a case of the summer flu.

He heard Finn shuffle to the front door and open it, followed by the sound of Finn talking to someone he obviously knew. Curiosity got the best of him and Kurt walked out to see who was at the door.

“Hey Kurt, this is Puck,” Finn gestured to the boy standing on their doorstep. “Puck, this is my brother that I told you about.”

“Hi,” Kurt nodded.

“Hello,” Puck echoed in a stiff, polite tone. “Mr Harris would like to invite you and your parents to dinner tomorrow night, as long as you’re feeling better Finn. If you’ll please inform your parents, I’ll return later for your answer.”

Kurt watched Puck walk away. His speech had sounded like something Mrs Harris would say, she probably wrote it for him and had Puck memorize it, which the slave repeated word for word. Puck was probably scared that if he got a word wrong, he’d be punished. Kurt was pretty sure neither Harris adult would punish Puck unless he did something worth punishing and hopefully, it was something Puck would learn.

“Back to the couch with you,” he led Finn to the living room. “Mom and Dad won’t let you go tomorrow if you still have a fever.”

“Oh,” Finn immediately laid back down on the couch and wrapped his blanket around him. “Hey Kurt?”

“Yes?”

“Is Puck going to be serving us tomorrow?” Finn asked. “Cause that’ll be weird.”

Kurt didn’t answer but he agreed. It was going to be weird.

 

Finn was well enough for them all to attend the next day. Their parents insisted they wear nice clothes and they stood on the Harris’ doorstep, waiting for someone to answer the door. As Kurt expected, Puck answered the door and welcomed them into the house. He was nothing like the funny boy Finn has described. Instead Puck was formal and kept avoiding his eye whenever Kurt tried to look at him.

“Thank you Puck,” Mr Harris said as Puck placed a plate of food in front of him. “We’re fine,” he added after everyone had been served. “Go ahead and eat your dinner.”

Puck disappeared into the kitchen, door closing behind him. Kurt knew he’d be eating his dinner alone, probably just like every night. It would never matter how much one of The Guilty came to care about the family they were assigned to; there would always be subtle reminders like eating alone to enforce that they weren’t a part of that family. Kurt couldn’t imagine being forced to live like that.

After dinner, Puck came back out to clear their plates then he served dessert and coffee. It gave Kurt the impression of dining at a restaurant in someone’s house but knowing that Puck was one of The Guilty, and eating alone in the kitchen out of sight, made the experience uncomfortable.

Kurt had never really understood how some people described The Guilty as both always there and invisible. Now he understood. Puck was there, anticipating every need before the Harris’ could voice them, but he was never involved in any conversations, he was in the room but never made a sound. They were meant to be seen, meant to be a deterrent for other teenagers, but at the same time they were meant to be overlooked, meant to feel lower than the rest of society as punishment for their actions. Now that he understood it, he thought it was sick.

 

*****

The only thing the dinner did was make sure Kurt couldn’t get Puck out of his head. He could see that the Harris family were treating Puck well, Kurt never had any doubts that they’d be cruel, but he could tell that he was no more than a worker to them. It seemed like Finn was the only person who treated Puck like he didn’t care that he was a member of The Guilty; to Finn, Puck was cool, didn’t make fun of him, and liked sports. It was that simple. Some days Kurt worried that Finn had convinced himself that Puck was just a regular, hired worker instead of forced to work for the Harris family. If Puck was re-assigned, it would probably break Finn.

He knew friendship between someone the program deemed a good influence and The Guilty was encouraged. He knew it wasn’t because the program hoped to influence The Guilty; they hoped to remind The Guilty of their place in society. They weren’t free to go to the movies or the park or even just hang out whenever they wanted, they needed permission and they needed money. It was one more way to enforce the lesson they had to learn. Relationships for The Guilty were forbidden, unless there was a child involved. It meant a longer sentence for The Guilty and either a large fine or sentencing to the program for the free partner. A girl at their school, Rachel Corcoran, had fallen in love with The Guilty who worked for her mother and she’d ended up being sold to the program, now working for the Berry family in the next neighbourhood. Kurt knew his parents would accept any fine levied against the family but those fines were high and they couldn’t afford one. It would cost them the garage and maybe the house.

He continued to watch Puck, even knowing that, if he was honest with himself, he had to admit that he was attracted to the slave. It was the way Puck cared so gently for the Harris children, giving them his full attention while playing with them in the backyard, teaching five-year-old Billy how to kick a soccer ball. It was the way he never told Finn he had too much work to do to talk. It was the way Kurt was sure Puck would look directly into his bedroom window as though he knew Kurt was watching him. That made him feel like they had a connection even though they’d barely spoken to each other.

It was dangerous, Puck was dangerous to him, he was dangerous to Puck. If someone even suspected that there was an attraction on either side, it could end badly for them. They would have to be the ones to convince a judge there was nothing between them, instead of a lawyer proving there was a relationship.

So Kurt kept watching Puck from his bedroom, a nice, safe distance away where no one could accuse them of hiding a relationship. And Puck kept looking up at his window every single time.

 

He knew he couldn’t avoid Puck forever. They lived next door and Puck spent every minute of his limited free time with Finn. Some slaves tried to see their families during their mandatory break but Kurt figured if his parents sold him, he probably wouldn’t want to see them.

He was in charge of planning the summer street party, though technically it was supposed to be his parents’ job. He would be the one planning what everyone was going to do and bring, where they’d set up each booth, and what time each event would start. All the houses on the street threw in money for the budget and each house would be responsible for something. It would be Kurt’s job to co-ordinate everyone and make sure their jobs would be finished on time.

Of course, that meant the person he’d be dealing with from the Harris house would be Puck. Mr Harris had passed the responsibility to the slave the second Kurt had given out the assignments. He knew Mr Harris was a busy man, so was Mrs Harris, but the entire point of each house having something to do was for the whole house to work on it together. Other parents were taking the time to work on their assignments with their kids. But his job was to make sure the work got done, not care how or who did it. He couldn’t avoid working with Puck and risk the party suffering, not when it meant so much to everyone and not after begging his parents to allow him to be the planner.

He would just have to find a way to work alongside Puck for the next two weeks while they planned what to do for music at the party. The Harris family was usually in charge of the music since Mr Harris could play the guitar and sing and there were enough people on the street who played instruments to form a halfway decent band. They would have to figure out something now that they lost Mr Harris’ guitar skills.

If Kurt could stop himself from getting distracted by Puck’s presence, maybe he’d be able to plan a great party. And, he supposed, there was always the chance that spending time with Puck will kill the dangerous crush he’d developed. He could hope.


End file.
